On Tuesday, Google Local Business Center became Google Places.
Google Places exists to help local businesses reach local customers. Currently, Google reports that about 4 million businesses have already claimed their virtual dot on the map. Also, Google reports that one in five searches relate to location. Business owners partner with Google Search to bring in more site traffic and business by using old features with new ones. Familiar features include directions, hours of operation, uploaded photos, customer reviews, coupons and real-time updates.
And the drum-roll for Google Places’ new features…
1) Service Areas:
2) Advertising Program: For $25 a month, business can add ‘flare’ to their listing on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags.
3) Free Photo Shoot: Request to get Google to snapshot your Google Business photos. These pics will supplement those under your current photo section on your Places page.
4) Customized QR Codes: What is a QR Code? A QR Code is a two-dimensional bar code, or a matrix code that stands for ‘quick-response’. Mobile phones can quickly read this code with its camera. To see how QR code and how to use, please view the video below.
For almost five years, ebasedEVOLUTION has been working with the IWLA (International Warehouse & Logistics Association) and several of their members to improve their visibility and value in search engines. This year, the IWLA’s 119th Annual Convention was held at the beautiful Hotel del Coronado, just outside of San Diego.
This year’s theme was “Surviving & Prospering, Translating Hard Choices into Profits.” The convention assembles the best minds and the best practices in the industry. Program speakers come from operations and executive management backgrounds, and provided valuable insight regarding how companies translate hard choices into profits.
This year, Project Manager Korey Kashmer and SEO Analyst Joe Restivo represented ebasedEVOLUTION at the event. While there, they atteneded the annual golf outting at Steel Creek Canyon, where they shot par and were very happy about it. Additionally, several of our clients attended, including Jere Van Puffelen of Prism Team Services, a California third party logisitics company, Andre Vanegas with Camelot 3PL, a WMS company, and Ayal Latz with a2b Fulfillment, a direct response fulfillment company.
Photo : Picture : : Song Word : Song Lyric Can Google really understand synonyms?
It appears that Google Search is beginning to understand the nature of human language. From this recent article, Google goes over their ability to pull synonyms into search results. Photo doesn’t just mean ‘photo’ anymore in SEO speak; it could also mean ‘picture’, ’snapshot’ or ‘pic’. This reassures us that their algorithm goes beyond understanding basic SEO techniques that we have almost become too comfortable with.
For SEO writers, it also reiterates the importance of well-written copy with more than just keyword-rich text. The use of naturally descriptive phrases with flow, meaning and non-repetitiveness is essential. Cluttering and bogging down MDT and Title Tags with your list of targeted keywords will only hinder your progress.
As crazy as it seems, Google’s algorithm has a semantic memory. Not only can Google pick up on synonyms, but they’re smart enough to pick up on when they are not. The article’s example highlights on ‘arms reduction’ and ‘arm reduction’.
Try it yourself. In Google, search for ‘SEO’ and you’ll find ’search engine optimization’ is also highlighted. Try searching for “BB” and you’ll probably get ‘Blackberry’ results.
If you have any questions, please visit our SEO/SEM website and/or contact us! Our SEO Team is always up for a good chat.
Since the New Year is right around the bend, it’s about that time to reevaluate, ramp up or to just simply create an Internet marketing strategy. With the recession slowing coming to an end, there is no better time than now to position yourself effectively and efficiently.
Where do you start? What do you change? What are the best ‘runs for your money’? We found a great article on Entreprenur.com that drilled down how worthy 10 popular online trends were in term of investment. From blogging to SEO and PPC advertising, this article could be a great way to get your feet wet on where to focus your efforts.
As SEO analysts, we really like to talk about and analyze new websites, efforts and campaigns. Feel free to contact us or visit our internet marketing firm ’s website!
If you haven’t heard about Google Caffeine yet, just know that it is a new system in which Google will be indexing pages. With the vast popularity of social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, Google has decided to place more emphasis on these sites in their search results. Don’t worry, it will not be officially implemented until after the holiday season, so you do have time to prepare.
Matt Cutts (Google Mastermind Employee) recently discussed some of the new features you will notice (and may not notice) with the revised search engine…
To begin, if you are a business, and are looking to boost rankings in Google, you have got to have presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Google will start listing these sites at the top of search results. Even live ‘tweets’ will be included in the search results! Sounds crazy, but that’s the direction the search world is heading.
Google will also be rewarding those sites that load extremely fast. For those individuals who have visited a site, only to sit and wait a couple moments for the page to load will no longer have to worry about this issue.
For those companies who are thinking “well, how do I know how fast my page is loading”, I have a tool to help you out… Please go to: www.code.google.com/speed and insert your URL. The results will speak for themselves.
Our previous post was about Google introducing Twitter into their organic search results. Well since then, Bing has decided to jump on board also. On October 21, Qi Lu, President of Microsoft’s Online Services Group announced
“Bing will now incorporate Twitter updates in search engine results with Facebook soon to follow. It’s cumbersome: to search “tweets”, you must access a segmented part of the site at bing.com/twitter, but combined with Bing’s xRank featuring top rankedcelebrities, musicians, politicians, and bloggers of the minute, it’s like a real time scan of People magazine headlines”
So we have had many people ask us over the past few months, so where is the blog?!!! Of course we are an internet marketing company and we should absolutely have a blog.
The time has come and our blog is here!
We had to make sure the blog integration was just right before we launched. Of course we are big into internet marketing and precision on the web.
Stay tuned and I promise there will be more to come!
